Over-optimism in software development projects: "the winner's curse"

15th International Conference on Electronics, Communications and Computers (CONIELECOMP'05) Pub Date : 2005-02-28 DOI:10.1109/CONIEL.2005.58

M. Jørgensen, Stein Grimstad

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引用次数: 50

Abstract

It is well known that software development projects tend to be based on over-optimistic cost estimates. Better knowledge of the sources of this over-optimism is necessary to improve realism in software development project bids and budgets. This paper analyses the effect of "the winner's curse". The winner's curse is a result of the selection of software providers among those with the lowest bid, i.e., those with a tendency towards the highest level of overoptimism. The winner's curse has not been extensively analyzed in software cost estimation studies, but is a well known phenomenon in domains such as auctioning. We exemplify the effect of the winner's curse with data from a real software development bidding round and simulate how increase in number of bidders and cost uncertainty impact the expected profit. We argue that the winners' curse is a problem for both clients and providers, and that it may lead to inefficient use of scarce resources. Possible remedies for reduction of negative effects of the winner's curse are discussed.

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软件开发项目中的过度乐观:“赢家的诅咒”

众所周知，软件开发项目往往基于过于乐观的成本估算。更好地了解这种过度乐观的来源对于提高软件开发项目投标和预算的现实性是必要的。本文分析了“赢家诅咒”的影响。赢家的诅咒是在出价最低的公司中选择软件供应商的结果，也就是说，那些倾向于最高程度的过度乐观的公司。在软件成本估算研究中，“赢家的诅咒”并没有得到广泛的分析，但在拍卖等领域，这是一个众所周知的现象。我们用一个真实的软件开发招标的数据来举例说明赢家诅咒的影响，并模拟了投标人数量的增加和成本不确定性如何影响预期利润。我们认为，赢家诅咒对客户和供应商都是一个问题，它可能导致稀缺资源的低效使用。讨论了减少“赢家诅咒”负面影响的可能补救措施。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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15th International Conference on Electronics, Communications and Computers (CONIELECOMP'05)

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